The Very Last Gambado

by Jonathan Gash

  “Sorry, lads.” I was so apologetic. “When I saw they’d shifted the lights I got scared I’d fall over and ruin it all.”

  Nick slumped. “We’ll be fucking hours now, Lovejoy. You couldn’t have said anything worse.”

  Or better. "Sorry, lads. I’ll go and apologize.”

  “Yeah, do that,” bitterly from Lofty.

  Trailing my sack I passed the Lancelot-Meese maelstrom, went to sit by props. It’s strange how dedicated these folk are. People grumble about show business, the money they get. Believe me, for single-minded get-it-done conviction they leave whole industries standing. Props numbered a dozen or so, really down. I sat beside a lass on the floor.

  “Sorry, love,” I said. “I tried persuading Mr. Lake.”

  “Bastard actors.” She was laconic. “Gone midnight and it’s will the world spot Lancelot’s missing eyelash. The hours we waste.”

  "Terrible.”

  Somebody called her. She pulled herself up and entered the mob. Nobody was looking my way. All attention was focused on the contumely.

  Eight smoke cannon were placed about the saloon. After we’d been readmitted, the lofty saloon doors to the Grenville and king’s galleries were closed, two uniformed museum guards standing mutely before each. We were boxed in. And so was I.

  A mound of equipment lay beside the wall. All walls were glass bookcases, reaching as far as the ceiling, ancient folio tomes peacefully ranked behind glass. This was where Three Wheel had been standing, my reason for coming. Idly, I raised a flap of the nearest box. Archie must have stood on it to see over the heads. My four smokies, thank God. Action now? Or later? Watching the arguments subside about Lancelot’s best side, lighting, where the cameraman was focused, the jaw angle, eye lines, I tore my plastic bag near its gathered neck. It was difficult. Try to keep the damned bags intact to line your dustbin and they fall apart. Actually try to pierce one and it shreds your fingers. I heard somebody say, “Truly, lovie,” and lifted one of the canisters. Seal intact. I pretended to examine it, casually dropped it into my bag through the slit. Another. Nobody looking. Reconciliation raised its rose-tinted head. People were walking back to their positions. Lovie, darlings, angels, resounded.

  “Lovejoy?” Laurie.

  Oh, hell. I dithered. Time for a third? Or did I release the smoke now, make a run? But Seg was in view. I rose as Laurie’s podgy helper pushed among the equipment to find me.

  "It’s places, Lovejoy," she said sternly. Her eyes misted in rapture. “We’re going for the take!”

  “Great. Okayee.” I hauled my bag to my shoulder. Nothing fell out. “I’m glad it’s finally come.”

  “So'm I.” She guided me among the gear toward my least favorite doorway. “Isn’t it. . . oh, simply ecstatic? Imagine how privileged, honored, you must feel! Part of this great enterprise.”

  “Aye, love. Imagine.”

  “Did they change it, Lancelot?” I asked, worried, now I was the one who wanted no interruptions.

  "Bastards,” he said. “Directors, producers, extortionist bloodsucking swine.”

  “Er, right, great.”

  Lofty gave me the bent eye so I abandoned diplomacy and stood in line. Fourth hoodlum, after Lancelot, Nick, Lofty. Lancelot carried no bag, so he could rip off his hood and do his close-up sneer and die dramatically for his Oscar.

  Outside in the saloon shouts were being raised for coordination, readiness, a last-second stand-to. I nudged Lofty, not believing my question, his answer. "It’s go this time, eh?”

  "This is the one take, Lovejoy. Just keep going.”

  “Now hear this, planet!” Ray Meese’s amplified voice cackled. “Whatever, it’s the one true take, truly truly. We go, and keep going no matter what. No turning back, oh world. Okayee?” Whoops, cheers, moviespeak praise, arose in a crescendo. Ray must be loving this, his moment. All was on course for the greatest achievement in movie history. Real life and storytelling would do the ultimate: step into each other’s existence, do a miracle interchange before everybody’s very eyes.

  "Stand by, everybody. Where’s Josephine?”

  "Stand by. Hoods okayee in there?”

  “Okayee.”

  "One minute soon, Lovejoy,” Lofty’s black hood said kindly over his shoulder, white eyes blinking roundly. "Just do exactly what you did at rehearsal.”

  “Ready, Lofty. And ta.”

  He chuckled. "Remember the bag, daft bugger.”

  “Oh, aye!” I made a joke of it, only falling silent when the crews’ shouts achieved unison. We all quietened.

  "A minute, everybody.” The deep voice of Jake, Vance’s fourth assistant. Or was if fifth? A hairy gorilla of a bloke, always after Laurie. Rumor said she turned him down every time.

  I checked my gear. Neck of sack grabbed tight, submachine gun in my right. Hank had renewed its magazine. All on course. Nick’s gun clacked against the paneling. He moved aside, no panic. Lancelot’s hood was nodding gently, him going over his movements.

  "Half a minute, everybody,” from a high-pitched nerve-jangled Laurie. “All in? Negatives only, everyone. Fog us up. Slow on. Ted? Sadie? Vernon, that far side . . .” Names, mutters, a clatter as somebody dropped something.

  My hands were wet. Lofty hitched at his hood. I used my arm to clamp my toy gun to my side, and slowly stooped. The others obscured me from the pale faces outside, all still and watching. The lights were blinding. Hand inside my bag’s slit. Slow-motion rummage, one canister in the hand. Slowly out, on the floor between my feet.

  "Twenty seconds, world. Still and quiet.”

  Hand into the bag. No second canister. A slightly faster fumble, heart banging. Canister, cold and capable, falling into my palm among the dross of secondhand picture frames and polystyrene cubes in there. Out. Between my feet to join its pal.

  "Fifteen seconds. No going back. Stef Honor?”

  "Okayee, okayee.”

  The canisters have a seal. You pull it, very like the ring on a beer can and that easy. Sickened, cursing faithless Three Wheel Archie to hell, my hands sweat-slippery, I heard the seconds ticked off, heard the faint chug of the smoke guns start, saw ahead the opalescence beyond the doorway, heard the assistants’ call, wait for it, wait for it. I’d been in an army last time this horrid nausea froze into my belly. What was I doing here among these maniacs for God’s sake? They were all mad, mental.

  "Two, one, on hold for action everybody. And . . .”

  Lofty’s elbow nudged me. Any second. Sod them. I changed hands, bag under my left arm, toy gun in my right. I waited. I was suddenly vaguely disappointed they didn't shout “Lights! Camera! Action!” like on old black and white Tuesday night reruns. But was that maybe just setting the mood. I’d have to look it up properly to find out. Or happen Lofty and Nick knew, my mind babbled. They all seemed immersed in the folklore of movies. How odd. Me thinking movie instead of film. The American influence perhaps? Altogether—

  “Action!” somebody screeched, high-pitched, desperate, and all hell broke loose. I was astonished. Guns were firing. My finger ripped the canister rings. Lake, Nick, Lofty, were diving out of the door. It was here. Now. Action.

  "Gawd Almighty,” I muttered, then remembered I wasn’t to speak, just leap out, go left, shoot bam bam bam.

  It can’t have been more than half a second but it was centuries long, that gap before I had the sense to sling two tin cans. Sounds easy, but isn’t. Try it, clutching a plastic bag and holding a toy gun, simultaneously trotting forward into pandemonium. I must have emerged like Quasimodo, hunched, trying not to drop anything. And immediately I couldn't see a bloody thing. I’d forgotten. These military smoke cans don’t just leak a tiny plume. They sort of explode, shooting out a tremendous opaque brown smoke fountain with a ferocious hiss. It spumes out, spitting, for all the world like a pipe sprays water. Panicked, blinded by two uncontrollable canisters hosing cloud, I blundered forward into the door jamb, nearly dropped my bag, caught sudden sight of a brilliant light with Lofty’
s hooded noddle bobbing in silhouette, guessed a direction and slung a canister along the floor that way as I leapt out. I inhaled a lungful of smoke directly from my remaining can about then, and ran to my left retching. I had the sense to duck low, skim the other canister like a bowling ball along the wooden floor at my spot X. Lancelot started shooting, then I heard him, “This way, men!” A snapshot glimpse of a figure in security uniform in the smoke, Seg facing me by the central cabinet, waiting.

  Nick and Lofty were firing now, Lofty dragging his sack, the shots deafening. Me to move left, not firing. With all the lights foresting the saloon I was blinded. In country fog you look up, take direction from trees. Astonishing to see the ceiling clear as day, brilliantly lit. Gunfire. Somebody thumped down in a terrible clatter—Lofty getting pretend-killed.

  Shots from above ahead, a whimper and thud. Saffron getting wounded, everybody’s guns bamming except mine. I dropped the thing, felt along the nearest display cabinet and mercifully there was Hymie’s samovar, cold, gold, richly meeting my hand. Smoke was impenetrable, my brown stuff hosing everywhere, instantly thickening the feeble pallor of the props’ mist into solid umber. Faint patches of ochre showed where the big lights struggled to transect the air.

  The fucking lid wouldn’t come off. I whimpered in the gunfire, the thuds and bambams, turned the top, managed it, dropped the precious gold cover any old where, grabbed inside, extracted the cloth-wrapped heaviness, lost my sack, heard Stef s submachine gun start up from above and Nick thump to the floor, tremblingly unwrapped the six-chambered percussion handarm and moved at a fast crouch, gagging on the brown smoke.

  Two of Laurie’s glassclattershatters sounded almost simultaneously. I knew where I was to an inch. Lofty was one crash, finally dying from Stefs balcony shots. The other was unscripted, the autoforker vehicle ripping the Carta cabinet’s wood and glass cover. That faint creaking within was the metal reinforcement concealed in the wood. Clever, but even strip steel’s no use against a device that can raise tons. Two yards away, duck left and run blindly, halt. Spot X must be a yard to my right. Seg would be within arm’s reach. I thought, Oh sod it. Him or me. Well, I honestly didn’t think, just held out my percussion piece honestly without any notion of hurting anybody, simply in sort of blind despair, and pulled the trigger.

  These pieces recoil badly. I felt my elbow whine with sprain. But something thudded practically next to the muzzle. Something stabbed at my cheek under my right eye; the copper percussion caps always splatter back at you. Horrified, I felt my trigger finger pull. second flash, thump.

  Something groaned, nudged my foot. A weight slumped at me, Seg’s body. I shoved it away, going “Argh” in fear. And reached into glass fragments, felt, grabbed, hauled at the picture frame that held the Carta. I had to lever it with the percussion’s stock because of wires, realized alarms were suddenly whooping and wailing in pandemonium. I’d got it. And stood flummoxed, blinded, frightened. What now, for God’s sake? I heard somebody start coughing, practically in my face. My percussion boomed a third time, cracking my elbow, the noise also lost in the other shooting and the howling sirens, me catching a lash of copper fragment on the forehead.

  Shakily I checked my position from the ceiling, dived through the smoke. The place was darkening. Were they dowsing their lights? Hardly. A bambam sounded, Lancelot dying away, gamely sticking to the script though by now everybody must know things were going wrong. Choking and wheezing, I scraped along a wall, almost yelped when it hit me in the face. The rope ladder. I’m not good on muscular coordination but fumbled up it. It’s your feet that have the difficulty because the damned thing swings about the more you climb. And I had to keep hold of the Carta in its frame. It was only small, but too big to stuff into my body suit as I had the six-chamber. Of course Stef and Saffron hadn’t had to climb, idle swine. They’d gone up the staircase that is concealed in the wall bookcases near the Grenville entrance. Skillfully banging my head on the bottom of the balcony I clambered over the railing and peered down. It was a mess.

  The great saloon was a sea of brown mucky smoke, still billowing up from two areas, one in the center and another almost immediately below. Huge floodlights stuck out of the smoke like monsters questing from a primeval swamp. Swirls showed where people moved. Two people were above the smoke level on gantry chairs. Ray Meese was one, Vance the other. The alarms were deafening. Somebody was thumping. Sirens were rioting outside.

  “Cut,” somebody yelled. The call was echoed everywhere. Time to go. I groped, hauled out my percussion piece, and turned along the balcony when somebody touched me.

  “What happened?”

  I screeched, leapt a mile. Stef and Saffron were standing beside me, puzzled. She was bloodstained, only a shoulder wound from a props blood capsule.

  “You stupid burkes!” I yelped. “I almost shot you."

  “Is it a wrap?” Saffron asked, silly cow. I ask you. I pushed past them. Everybody down there was coughing. A camera poked up through the filth to give me another scare, but I was being scared for me now, not them, and scurried round the saloon balcony like a rabbit. Getting round the corner proved difficult, as Footer had predicted. Security had locked the glass door, but I could stretch round to grab the far rail and managed to slide the frame onto the balcony first before climbing after. After that there was only one way because there’s a huge fixed glass door barring the way from the saloon onto the Grenville’s balcony, and that was to break it. I nearly broke my foot trying to kick through, so I stood at an oblique angle and shot at the glass from a distance of inches. Somebody below in the hullabuloo screamed, "What the fuck’s that?” I was past caring. The window didn’t cave in as I’d expected. Two shots to do it, would you believe, and each one of solid lead. I was enraged. Security swines had even used reinforced glass at balcony level. No wonder Footer gets annoyed. I struggled through the opening, cutting the back of my thigh.

  “Pssst!”

  Startled, I looked down from the balcony into the tranquil, well-lit, smoke-free Grenville Library. A museum security man was gazing up at me, worried.

  “Are they finished in there? Those alarms—”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m the last. It’s done now.”

  He held up a clipboard. “Only there’s nothing about fire alarms down here.”

  Another security man was by the barred exit door. “That glass really broken, is it?” he called up, interested. He too was caught up in moviedom’s trick, no longer knowing what was real.

  “Best ask Gabriella,” I suggested, walking to the first rectangular window. Brown smoke poured through the opening behind me. “Major Bracegirdle’s on his bleep, somebody said.”

  "Right.” He sounded relieved, started tinkering with his intercom. I gnawed through my ID tag, whizzed it back into the saloon’s smoke.

  I lifted the Venetian blind away from the window. Pitch black outside, of course, in the central quadrangular space bordered by the museum’s enormous structure. I had one shot left. Hang the consequences. I pointed, pulled, whimpered at the pain as my arm took the recoil. This time the glass completely shattered, cascading all over me. I dropped the percussion and clambered out into night air. One uniformed bloke called, “Here, mate,” and “You there!” I heard somebody running, orders given, people shouting. Reality was intruding.

  The great building’s inner face is unadorned, not like the lofty pillars and smooth slabs of facing stone on the outer street-side aspect. This meant drainpipes and brickwork. And ledges. I found myself standing on glass fragments on the sill. I didn’t move, pulled off my hood and forced the manuscript frame into it, took the corner in my teeth, then sidled along the sill until I happened on a drainpipe. The darkness wouldn’t reveal how far from the ground I was, but guesswork said about forty feet. Where would I be even when I got there? More shouts, a whistle, a wahwah car siren.

  London’s faint skyglow etched the museum’s bulk for me. The enormous central dome of the reading room loomed in front. I�
�d make for the base. But hadn’t Footer’s sketches showed treacherous glass-paneled sloping roofs in some places in this vast quadrangle, the map gallery for instance? I’d no torch. Action, into the great unknown. I shinned down the drainpipe. Odd that it was rectangular in section, Edwardian decorative classiness showing I suppose. I was glad. It makes for difficult shinning, though.

  I’d no way of telling what I was standing on. I felt around. Naturally, it had started to rain the instant I’d broken out. Just my luck. The ground felt stone slabs, not glass. Feeling my way two- handed I struck out on all fours. There’s no one public spot in the whole British Museum from where you can see inside the quadrangle—further evidence of the nasty minds these security folk have. I’d no idea how far I’d have to go before . . . before nutting my suffering head on this wall. Windows, a yard or two along, at knee height. I broke in by lying on my back and kicking a heel at it. A latch, and I was inside, among ordinary prosaic furniture. Somebody’s office.

  By now a light was on in the museum building, a row of high rectangles partially blocked by a low roof. No smoke showed, but wahwah motors chorused in the distance. Fire engines, peelers arriving? I did the interior lock by simply trying it before smashing it with a chair. The incumbent must have felt so secure, carefully locking his office from the corridor side as he’d departed—folk don’t break out after all, do they? Only in. I had a little glow to help, but it’s always easier looking from dark into the less dark. I set off down the corridor, reached a staircase. I knew what I wanted, and kept Footer’s penciled map in mind. Trouble was, the museum building’s ructions outside had begun to dwindle. Frequendy I stopped to listen and each time got collywobbles. Analyses were taking place. People were being counted. The smoke and its canister cases were being removed. Seg would already be in hospital. If I’d hit him at all.

  For a moment I was tempted to drop it just anywhere and clear off. Or go back upstairs and own up. That’s typical me, sacrifice anything for an easy way out. But self-disgust won. I pressed on.